Net Present Value

A common financial concept (and a critical component of Minnesota’s C-BED tariff), reflecting the idea that having a given amount of money today is more valuable than receiving the same amount of money in the future. C-BED requires utilities to determine the net present value of their rate schedule using the standard discount factor that they apply to their other business decisions. That means calculating the expected payments over the life of the contract and applying the discount to find the net present value of the series of payments. The net present value is then divided by the total energy produced over the 20 years, resulting in the “net present value rate” – the present value of every kilowatt-hour the project will produce over its lifetime. C-BED requires that the utility establish a tariff that provides for a rate schedule resulting in a net present value rate of up to 2.7¢/kWh.